Don’t Surrender Your Boldness

Are you shrinking back or charging forward with boldness?

I’m older. That’s what I say now, but when I was “younger” and I talked then about people who were as old as I am now, I’d say, “they were older than the hills.” So as a person who now fits that description, I was thinking back on my life and remembering all the times when I did exciting, crazy, foolish, stupid, dangerous things. And this little voice popped into my head and said, “When exactly did you stop believing you were invincible?”

That got me thinking about the transition from then to now. The change didn’t happen overnight, and for the most part, I didn’t even notice the subtle differences, each one compounding onto the next. I don’t know, maybe it started one sunny day on a cliff over the Pacific Ocean when I reached the end of my nerve and my strength, and only the Hand of God kept me from tumbling down the rock face into the ocean. Maybe a little piece got away in calculus class where math, which had always been so easy, suddenly became unintelligible. Maybe a little piece drifted away when I realized I couldn’t walk as fast, or throw a 75 lb. box to the top of the stack. Maybe some of it vanished when I realized I wasn’t a teenager anymore and that I had actually become invisible to three of them who pinned me to the wall as they passed by in the mall. Piece by piece, conviction turned to compromise, endless energy was replaced by a hint of weakness, and an unshaken confidence slowly gave way to timidity.

What’s the point of this self-analysis? Well it all started when I began working on my plan for 2012. It started with goal setting and this deep wrenching gut check that comes from realizing that some of my previous goals have gone by unaccomplished simply because I didn’t believe in me, anymore. In short, I’d failed for a lack of conviction and a lack of confidence. And there it was, staring me in the face: the doubt, the fear, the weakness, the timidity and the question, “when did I stop believing I could do anything?”

That’s when I realized it’s a sneaky little thing, like an expanding waistline. The first “extra inch” is no big deal, but inch by inch it builds into a serious problem. And like the expanded waistline, recognizing each subtle attack on my confidence has given me the ability to take corrective action. The confidence thief has been exposed. So, now am I invincible? No. I never was! But now, I understand that believing in me is the first step to regaining my strength, fearlessness, boldness, confidence, and conviction.

Armed with this renewed awareness, I’m boldly and enthusiastically planning my future, with new goals, new confidence and new courage. I’m not just older, (as I like to say, now) nor am I older than dirt, but I am older and wiser and with this wisdom, I’m ready to confront the confidence thief and keep it from stealing another victory. I invite you to join me. Let’s plan our futures with the boldness that says, “I know I can and will achieve my goals”.

Remember, if we don’t take control of it – it will take control of us.

Plan your future with boldness.

Peggy Dent M.S.

 

Work Smarter! What Does That Mean?

Was 2011 a Pleasant Surprise or Brutal Reality?

If last year was a disappointment here are three things you can do right now to flip your life!

Well the numbers are in, the 2011 books are closed, and if your year-end reports is not as rosie as you had projected then what are you going to do differently in 2012?

Did that little voice in your head just say, “I’ll work harder?”

I’m sorry, but that’s just stupid, if working harder would have created better results you would have realized them in 2011.  If working harder or longer isn’t going to improve the bottom line, (and you know it won’t) then what will?

Of course, you’ve heard it said that you need to work smarter not harder?

But what does that mean?  What are the techniques of working smarter?

Working smarter, in its simplest form, it means that you must understand and commit to three particular mind sets.  And ignoring these principles always results in lackluster performance and disappointing results.  These principles may seem basic but most people never grasp their significance and they spend a lifetime suffering the consequences.

 First, you have to commit to excellence because mediocre just won’t get it done.

Okay so you’ve done mediocre and that didn’t work for your customers, your associates, your boss, or employees.  It didn’t work for your family and friends, but most of all, it didn’t work for you.  A mediocre mindset is preset to make and accept excuses, to tell half truths, to settle for almost good enough, to blow off commitments and break promises, and to finish far back in the pack.  If you want to work smarter in 2012 you’re going to have to sell out to excellence and in so doing you’ll need to fulfill your commitment, keep your promises and embrace excellence at every level.

Second, you have to get serious about goal setting and planning and that includes planning your plan, writing it down, and executing your plan.

You need to have a real executable plan for your work and your life. If you think you can just drift through each day dealing with every problems as it arises you can count on 2012 being a rerun of 2011.  Planning isn’t hard but it does take time and thought and there are some specific techniques.  The plan needs to be stated in the form of goals not a to-do list.  The to-dos are part of an executable strategy to accomplish the goal.

If you’re not use to goal setting, or you’ve tried it in the past and failed to accomplish the goal, then you may find the whole idea a little daunting, so start with shorter time frames and set your goals just above what you think is attainable with effort.  For example, if your goal is to improve your fitness and strength through exercise and you can do 20 push-ups right now, don’t set your goal at 200 push-ups in 6 months.  The distance, both in time and accomplishment, is too far from your staring point and has the seeds of failure built into it.  Remember these are your own personal goals so you have to believe you can achieve them.  In this case, I recommend starting with a goal to increase the number of push-ups to 30 by the end of the second week. That is a stretch goal.  It increases your current performance by 50% in only two weeks but it is achievable with effort. After the first week evaluate your goal, your performance, and how you feel about both and then recommit to doing whatever is necessary to finish the goal by the due date.  If you’re on track and you’re developing some real discipline, start stretching out the time line and the achievement level but be sure to evaluate your performance each week.

I recommend this technique to build your goal setting muscles and remember you need to constantly evaluate your effort, and your commitment, and make corrections, as needed. This way you get some positive goal setting experience before you set a big stretch goal that’s far out of reach.  One final word about goals:  To be useful and executable goals need to be specific, measurable, and have a date of completion.  Anything else is a resolution, or a wish, or a good intention, but it’s not a goal.

Now that you have goals you need a plan.  Most people think a plan is just another name for a to-do list but the to-dos are actually the steps in a well defined plan.  For example, you have a desire not to wait until the last minute to get your taxes done.  You’ve always been one of those procrastinators waiting in line at midnight to drop your taxes in the mailbox on April 15.  This has caused a lot of stress in your life and you’re sure your accountant is about ready to kill you if you do that again this year. So using your newly developed goal setting techniques you set a goal to mail your taxes on April Fools Day- April 1.

Okay, you’ve got the goal and a timeline, now you need the plan.  This goal can actually be defined as a project and to achieve it you’ll need to define the steps of the project, and you’ll need to understand the natural order of those steps.  Additionally, you’ll need to assign a time line to each executable activity and you’ll need to follow the plan to its completion.  For example, set aside time to go through your records, gather the necessary documentation, make the call to your accountant to set up a meeting, call the property manager of your vacation rental to get their detailed list of expenses and rental fees, check with your spouse to see if they have any receipts for donations, medical bills, etc. Some of these tasks must be done before others so your plan defines all the steps in the project, and the logical order of those activities and it defines the timeline for each step so the project flows logically through to completion by the target date of April 1.

Each step must be defined as an actionable behavior.  For example, “set-up a meeting with the accountant” is not really an actionable item.  “Call the accountant on Feb 29 to schedule a meeting,” is an actionable item with a time line assigned to it.  Now it’s part of the plan, write it down on your calendar and forget about that step. You’ll see it again on Feb 29 when it will become one of your to-do items for that day.

Goal setting and planning are learned skills but just remember each goal had to be measurable and specific and each plan has to be broken down into actionable behaviors.  Get your calendar out and start filling in your goals and plans.  It may seem a bit laborious at first but it’s not. Every minute you spend planning will save you many minutes in the execution of the plan.  It keeps you moving forward toward a goal!  On the contrary when you don’t have goals and a plan, you start and stop, go down blind alleys, miss deadlines and opportunities, increase your stress, and project to everyone that you’re willing to settle for mediocrity.

You wouldn’t drive across the country without a map so why do you think you can navigate through an entire year without these same guidelines to help keep you on track. High achievers in every walk of life know the value of defining where they’re going and how they’re going to get there.  It’s always easier to get to a destination when you have the goal and plan in place. By using goal setting and planning you too can work smarter not harder.  

Finally, the third thing you absolutely must commit to in order to work smarter is to have a much longer NO list than YES list and you must be willing to defend it against all outside distractions.

We’ve talked about working smarter and saving time through goal setting and planning but to really grasp the significance of the first two items you must also recognize that time is your greatest asset and it is precious.  You can earn more money but you can’t create any more minutes in the day, and everyone gets the exact same number of minutes, so you need to protect the minutes you do have.  You have every right to guard this precious asset because in reality it is your life and if others waste your minutes they are wasting your life.  It’s serious and if you want different results in 2012 you need to set meaningful goals, write down an executable plan and most of all, you need to say no to the time and energy wasters.

You must learn to say No and mean it!

Say no to…

• toxic time wasters
• old systems and paperwork that no one uses or needs anymore
• websites and forum that are interesting but not moving you forward
• passing on email jokes and inspirational eye candy
• meetings that have no point and no agenda
• after-hours social obligations that keep you from spending time with the ones you love
• needy friends that suck the life out of you and give nothing back
• all the foods and beverages that damage your health and sap your strength
• spontaneous purchases that you regret later
• procrastination, excuses, and mediocrity
• angry birds, video games, internet surfing and social media during prime time
• and anything else that undermines your commitments

You are a social creature and play is a wonderful part of life.  Just be sure you make a distinction between play time and work time.  To enjoy them both you need to work and play with enthusiasm giving yourself fully to both types of activity.  Much of what you allow in your life just sneaks in and steals your time.  Those are the things you need to radically eliminate.

What are you waiting for, seize the day, set some meaningful goals, start planning your life today and repeat after me.

No thank you.

 

Uncover the Hidden Costs of Branding

Uncover the Hidden Costs of Your New Branding

Just because a design looks good doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good idea.  Unfortunately, some graphic artists are oblivious to the hidden costs of their designs.

And one of three things is at play in this situation:

• either they really don’t know what their designs will cost you
• or  they don’t care what their designs will cost you in the long run
• or (and this is a rare worst case scenario) they know what the costs are and misguidedly think the expense is an indicator of their talent.

As a print professional I’ve seen this played out in a few cases and it’s disheartening, especially when the client is a struggling new business or non-profit organization and their trust is violated by an unscrupulous designer.

I remember one private non-profit school that thought they had found the perfect design team out of state to help them “rebrand” their school.  Prior to the rebranding effort they had a very sophisticated and well recognized brand identity in the upper class market they served.  Their new out of state design firm thought an entirely new design would improve their visibility by creating an edgy new look.  I doubt, however, if the designers even bothered to visit this campus that was built on an old homestead where the centerpiece of the campus was a remodeled two story 19^th century barn.

Not only did the design firm create an entirely new logo, (which would require all new signage, new bus ads, new t-shirts, new marketing materials, new parking passes, new internal documents, and new web work) they made sure the new logo used 5 different Pantone colors, several of which could not easily be converted to process colors without adversely effecting  the colors in the logo.

You don’t need to be a print production expert to understand that the more colors you use in a design the more costly it is to create every single printed document.  When multiple colors are used in a design, or the design involved a photograph, the typical production method is to convert all the color to cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y) and black (K).  These are the 4 process colors (commonly referred to CMYK) and almost all printed photos, art prints, magazines, billboards, and virtually every other printed image is created using these colors.  Photographs easily convert to CMYK but the pantone colors are completely different.

There are literally thousands of specific colors defined and in use in all the various industries.  Paint uses one standard, fabric uses another, the auto industry has their own set of specific colors and the most common defined colors used in printing is the Pantone Color Matching System (PMS Colors).  Each set of colors (fabric vs print vs automotive) use their own pigments, binding agents, stabilizers, drying compounds, and mixing formulas.  And for the purpose of this article suffice it to say that not all printing Pantone colors convert well to CMYK colors.

Getting back to the complicated design for the new logo for the school… the new logo was comprised of 5 different PMS Colors.  Printing presses come in a variety of configurations and the more colors that can be printed at one time the more expensive the press is, and logically the printed products coming off of the press are priced accordingly. Typical printing presses are configured in 2 color, 4 color, 6 color etc. and the incremental costs between these configurations are not linear but geometric. For example a 4 color press would likely cost 5 or 6 times as much as a 2 color press and an 8 color press would cost 3 to 5 times more than a 4 color press.  These are general statements but from the standpoint of the costs for the school, they could no longer have their 200+ page student directory printed on an inexpensive 2 color press.  They needed a costly new level of expertise to get their bus signs screen printed, and the cost for their brochures and newsletters suddenly quadrupled.

Of course not knowing what I’ve just explained about how their new design complicated all the production issues they were horrified to learn of the extra costs for every single item they used in their operation and marketing.  Certainly they had planned ahead and budgeted money to hire the professional design firm to create new branding.  Unfortunately, they did not budget extra money for new production methods required by the new design.

Since the school had been in operation for decades they had a very good understanding of how much each line item in their budget would cost, but that knowledge was based on the old design not the new one, and unfortunately for them, no one on the new branding team was print savvy enough to know what impact the design would have on production costs, nor did they ask any of their affiliated vendors for an evaluation of the new design.  Many of us heard for months that a new branding effort was underway, but none of us were consulted until the final design was selected.

As you might have guessed, when the staff members at the school began to realize what the new design would cost their particular department they immediately started to compromise the image to stay within their budget.  Individual staff members began to make decisions about the presentation of the logo.  What was intended to be a school wide new branding image quickly degraded to fragmented subsets of this image. One billboard company converted the 5 colors to CMYK screen print ink, another department asked their print provider to convert the logo to shades of gray, another wanted to go back to the original two colors before the branding change, and across the board the benefits of a new brand where overshadowed by the constraints of the budget.

Did the graphics design firm know what impact their design would have on this school’s budget?  Did they care?  I don’t know!  If they knew and intentionally failed to mention it, then shame on them.  Of course, the final responsibility rested with the school’s new branding team but their knowledge base was in education not graphics or print so I think the graphics professional had the responsibility to at least, introduce the idea of additional production costs.

What can you learn from their mistakes?  First of all, assume graphics designer are more involved in the art (form) of the design than the production of that design (function).  Learn that you need to think about the use of the design and don’t be afraid to get outside input from the production specialists.  It’s like working with an attorney.  You need to set some limits at the beginning of the interaction.  Ask for a breakdown of costs.

I worked with one designer who purchased a photograph for our mutual client.  It was a picture of a plant that the designer used in the background of some button art and it was so light that you could barely even see the flower.  She charged our client $1800 for that picture which she purchased from an on-line photo source.  I asked her about the expense and her comment was (and I’m quoting her), “I don’t care.  It’s not my money.”  I believe that attitude may be more prevalent than any of us want to believe, so you need to set some limits and really understand the designer’s pricing structure.

So what is the lesson? When you hire a graphic designer, unless the designing will be used exclusively on the web (where they could use all the colors of the rainbow without effecting the price) the more colors use in the design the more costly it will be to use that design in print, signage, advertising, etc.   If there are many colors involved make sure it can easily be converted to CMYK.  When you hire a graphic designer, ask what kind of production experience they have.  If they’ve never been out from behind their computer, I would caution you to ask a professional printer for a quick evaluation before your sign off on even the preliminary designs.

In design, even the simplest things can make a huge difference in cost.  Black on White vs. White on Black seems like basically the same thing, right?  But having spent over 25 years in the printing profession, I assure you, those two things are as different as night and day.  Don’t be afraid to ask for a professional opinion!

 

 

 

Dark Side of Resolutions, Why Don’t They Work?

The Dark Side of New Year’s Resolutions, Why Don’t They Work?

Well we’re six weeks into the New Year!

We started out with high hopes and a grand scheme.  We made our firm New Year’s resolutions and vowed to stick to them this time around, but research shows that in spite of our firm commitment, 25% of resolutions are broken in the first week and by now, over half (54%) have fallen by the wayside.  Failing to keep our resolutions makes us feel disempowered so why do we put ourselves through this exercise every year and why is it so hard to stay the course?

One of the biggest problems with resolutions is that they are too vague.  This vagueness keeps us from really being able to define and alter our behavior and the resolutions have no specific measurement of success.

• I resolve to be nicer to my spouse
• I resolve to lose weight
• I resolve to get out of debt
• I resolve to get in shape
• I resolve to quit smoking

Certainly these are good idea but they’re too vague to be of real value in terms of changing behavior.  A resolution needs to be more than a good idea, it needs to be a goal, and real goals are specific and measurable, and are bounded by time.   For example:  I resolve to lose 30 pounds by June 1 2012.  Now you can break down that goal to monthly performance (30 pounds in 6 months = 5 pounds per month).  You can measure your performance on a monthly or biweekly basis and immediately know if you are on track to achieve your goal.  If you’re below that standard you know that you’ll need to make some behavior modifications and recommit to the goal.

The second reason resolutions are broken is that we don’t write them down and revisit them frequently to assess and evaluate our performance (remember there is a due date or time limit for achieving each goal).  And the third and final reason we do such a poor job of keeping our resolution is that we never go so far as to think about the reward we will receive when we do accomplish it.  There has to be a reason to modify our behavior or we’ll just keep doing what we always do.  The reasons are personal just like our resolutions, but without that extra carrot on the end of the stick it’s hard to keep moving forward toward the goal.  The more desirable the reward, (i.e. better fitting clothes, more personal confidence, look great in a bikini, improved social life) the more resolve we’ll have to stay the course and complete the goal.

Now here is the best part!  Even if we have already let our new year’s resolutions slip away.  Every day is a “New Day”.  We don’t have to wait for January 1 to get back on track.  After all January 1 is really just another new day.  Sure it coincides with the beginning of a new year, but so what?  Its still just a new day and when the sun rose on January 1 it was the begin the rest of our lives just like when the sun rises tomorrow morning it will be rising on the first day of the rest of our life.

Our future begins anew every morning, so let’s set new goals that are specific, measurable and achievable by a specific date.  Let’s define our rewards and check our progress weekly, and lets all start anew with the first rays of sunlight tomorrow morning. After all, like January 1, it will be a new beginning to the rest of our lives.  Seize the day!

 *Auld Lang Syne: Success predictors, change processes, and self-reported outcomes of New Year’s resolvers and nonresolvers, by John C. Norcross, Marci S. Mrykalo, Matthew D. Blagys , University of Scranton. Journal of Clinical Psychology, Volume 58, Issue 4 (2002)..

Seeds of Corporate Greatness

What Is The Difference Between a Great Company and a Mediocre One?

Maybe corporate greatness is not to be found in a set of obscure strategic objectives, benchmarks and metrics, gorilla marketing, and cutting edge leadership tactics, as so many bestselling authors and high paid consultants would have us believe. Maybe, when you cut through all the BS, corporate greatness is as simple as answering the phone, and speaking the language of your callers.  And the difference between really great companies and all the mediocre ones boils down to simply treating your customers the same way you want to be treated.

Does it seem silly in this world of complex international corporations that the roots of greatness can actually be found in pre-industrial revolution business transactions where a single customer interacted with a single tradesman to buy new shoes, a buggy whip, or a bridle and the craftsman created a quality product they were proud to deliver to their customer.  To the tradesman, before these folks were customers they were people, friends, and members of the community, and great companies today still find a way to embrace those essential qualities of personal interaction.

Unfortunately however, in far too many businesses customers are just blocks of data on a spread sheet and the prevailing attitude is that the corporation would run so much more smoothly and the work would be so much more enjoyable if they didn’t have to put up with customers. It’s sad but true, that many businesses have simply lost sight of the fact that at the culmination of the supply chain is a real person with real needs, who is willing to spend money on their product or service.

Sure, corporations can have all their glorious mission statements and corporate values proudly etched in gold plaques in their lobby, but it’s meaningless if the receptionist blows off the callers or worse yet, customers encounter a 5 minute phone tree with a 20 minute wait time just to ask a simple question.  Then finally, when they do get through to a real person they are saddened to realize that English is neither their first or second language nor are they knowledgeable or empowered to be of any assistance.

Today there is a huge disconnect between corporate values and the manifestation of those values at the customer level. Remember the pre-industrial revolution business model – One tradesman, one product, one satisfied customer?  Great companies today have found a way to retain this simplicity regardless of the size of the company.  Before you shake your head, and say that can’t happen in a global enterprise, consider UPS and FedEx.  They move millions of packages, to every corner of the globe, every day!  But each package is delivered by a human being (generally with a smile and a friendly greeting). Certainly, a package is occasionally lose or damaged in transit, but they have real people already trained and empowered to resolve that problem. Even the problem resolution process feels like a single transaction between a service provider and their customer.

There are other examples of mega corporations that have found a way to retained the value of treating customers the way they want to be treated, but there are far more businesses that have lost sight of the customer’s needs all together.  It’s really not that hard!   Start with this short list and rebuild your own strategy.

• Answer your phone,
• Speak your customer’s language,
• Listen to your customers,
• Empower all your staff to resolve problems,
• And remember customers are real people who think and feel just like you do.
• If you wouldn’t like an experience probably your customers won’t either.
• And finally, just remember to treat them the same way you want to be treated.

 

What Are the Secrets of Getting More Done Daily

If your TO-DO list feels like a ball and chain, then check your verbs!

Your daily to-do list should accelerate your performance and motivate you to get more done each day.  But for some people a TO-DO list is like a ball and chain holding them back from their full potential, and making them feel like they’re completely ineffective.  They look at the to-do list at the end of the day and see all the easy stuff crossed off and all the hard stuff was never even touched.  What’s going on?  They’re not lazy, they worked hard all day, but the to-do list still accuses them, highlighting their failure to perform.  Something must be missing.

If this describes your relationship with your to-do list then I suggest you check your verbs. Every item on your list must start with a verb: call, meet, go, write, email, but some verbs don’t really describe something you can do in one motion or at one time.  In those cases the verbs that are on your list are describing a project not an action and projects need to be broken down into doable actions before they show up on your to-do list.

For example, your list includes the item, “Do staff evaluations”. Certainly, do is a verb but it usually references a project, like do 2012 budget, do 2nd quarter projection, do customer satisfaction survey.  In the case of the staff evaluations, there are several steps to this project.  You might need to go to human resources and obtain their personnel folders, maybe you need to hand out peer review forms or self evaluation forms, or talk to other managers, or look up areas needing improvement cited on their last evaluation.  You’ll need to check your personal notes on each employee, etc., etc., etc.  Each of these tasks is part of “do staff evaluations” and doing it right it will take organization, time, and input from others.  You cannot “do staff evaluations” today because it involves a whole series of actions performed over time.  Are you a lazy goof-off because at the end of the day you didn’t cross off, “do staff evaluations”?  No!  But you will need to put it on a project list and then on your to-do list you should include, define steps and timeline for staff evaluations, because the first step in this project is “think time”.  This is the time you set aside to define all the steps in the project and the resources and input from others you will need to complete the project. Part of this think time is assigning a timeline to each step by starting at the due date and working backwards through the steps.  Now you have actions that you can actually do within the flow of your daily work and as you cross off each step you will be working your way to the completion of the project.

Remember.  It’s all about the verbs.  We get lazy and just do a brain dump onto our to-do list without really thinking about each item.  Maybe that works for you just to get all the stuff out of your brain and onto paper (or into your computer) but if the verbs are all descriptive of projects the result will be the same.  There are lots of verbs we use in our to-do list that are project words.  Organize, Analyze, Fix, Complete, Plan, Develop are all project words and on your to-do list you might as well write the words “put this off until later because it’s too darn hard” after each of them.

Once you’ve done the brain dump into your list.  Go back through it and move all the projects to your project list so it’s really a list with actionable verbs.  And include think time on your to-do list for each of the projects.

Here is a short list of project words to avoid on your to-do list.

• Do
• Get
• Fix
• Figure
• Organize
• Analyze
• Complete – Only use this verb if the activity is the very last item of a project list or you are describing an actionable item that you started at an earlier time.  For example you started to write the trade journal article yesterday and you need to complete it today.  Otherwise Complete is as vague as Do.

So What’s the Answer?

Clearly you have to do all the hard stuff eventually, and I’m not suggesting that you just put easy stuff on your to-do list.  No way!  Every worthwhile project does need to be completed but before it goes on your to-do list it needs to be broken down on a projects sheet.  That’s where you think through all the steps needed to logically complete the project.  On the project’s sheet you keep breaking it down until you get a list of actionable verbs for every step of the project with a corresponding date to start and complete the task. Once this work is done, you’ve reduced a daunting project to manageable steps, listed them in a logical order, and each step becomes a simple thing to do on your to-do list.  It’s easy to do the steps when you know what they are.  And as you cross them off you’ll feel like a winner not a loser.

This is how highly effective people get so much done in a day.  They let their to-do list guide them systematically toward the completion of larger more complicated projects.  Even if you’re building an ocean liner or a skyscraper the steps are the same.  The whole project has to be broken down into its parts and that has to be broken down into its parts until you are finally at the most elemental level of action.

Finally, items on your to-do list require a different amount of energy and time. Both are resources you have in limited supply so work on tasks requiring a lot of energy (mental or physical) during the times of the day when you are at your best.  Save the really easy stuff for times during the day when your energy levels are waning.

In summary, remember to check your verbs, don’t use a to-do list as a catch all for fragmented thoughts like; Gary’s retirement party. Use a verb, if you need to go to Gary’s retirement party at 3:00 put it on the list.  If you need to plan Gary’s retirement party, put it on a project sheet.

Peggy Dent M.S.

• Chara Development Group, Inc.
• CreatingRealSolutions.com

 

 

How Much $$$ Do You Throw Away Everyday?

not all the wast is this obvious

If you’re like most people you want to save money wherever you can, so I have a few startling statistics for you to help raise  awareness and possibly motivate you to change some costly old habits.

According to a study released by Lexmark International, $440.4 million of the annual $1.3 billion spent on government printing  is waste.  “So what!”, I hear you saying.  Government waste is not news!  But Lexmark didn’t stop with the US printing office.  They continued their research in European office buildings, on a Portuguese campus, and at other research sites and they learned that across the board approximately 30% of all desktop or copier sheets are placed directly in the waste basket or recycling bin after being removed from the printer.

One in every three sheets of paper printed is waste!  It wouldn’t be a big deal if we were only talking about 1 out of 3 sheets of paper, but we’re not.  This trend is what caused the US Government to waste 440.4 million dollars in 1 year and it is the same thing that caused London office workers to waste 21 million trees.

21 million trees!!  That a whole forest and certainly a more startling figure than the government waste.  Perhaps because I live in the Northwestern part of the US, where trees are everywhere, it is easier for me to get my head around 21 million trees  than around  440 million dollars of wasted money.  I’ve seen 21 million trees but I don’t really have a perception of $440,000,000.

What was the cause of this waste and how does it affect you?  Basically it was caused by carelessness and old habits.

• People pressed the print button before they really thought about their needs.
• They didn’t use the printer friendly version of a web form.
• They received two or three pages when they were expecting 1 page.
• They thought they were printing one thing but actually printed something else.
• They send the job to a copier but never picked up the copies.
• Someone else misplaced the copies or discarded them from the copier.
• Someone, intending to deliver the copies, got sidetracked so they were reprinted.
• And the list of carelessness and sloppy office procedures goes on and on.

Does this happen in your office?  Do you print things you don’t really need?  Are you aware of the overall impact of this behavior.  In the Portugal Campus study a few simple procedural changes saved them enough money in one year to completely replace all of the campus copy machines.  In their case, all print jobs sent to a copier where queued for print.  The sender had to actually go to the copier and use a code to have the copies printed.  Print jobs left in the queue for more than 24 hours were automatically purged.

Perhaps your office is not ready for a system wide change but the least you can do is observe your own behavior.  Count how many times you take something off of a printer or copier and put it directly into the recycling bin.  I was amazed by my own behavior and I think you will be surprise, as well.

How much money can you save?  Take the entire office supply budget for toner and paper, divide it by 3, and that is how much you and your business could be saving with very little effort.   It adds up.  Remember the waste in London alone was  21 million trees.

How many billions of trees could we save if everyone in London, Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Helsinki, Hong Kong, New York, Ft. Lauderdale, Tulsa, Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles  and your city all stopped wasting 1 out of every 3 sheets of office printing.

It’s a little thing you can do to reduce greenhouse gas and it doesn’t require giving up anything meaningful.  Next time before you push the Print button, ask yourself, “are you sure you need to print this document”.

Information sources:

• http://ohmygov.com/blogs/general_news/archive/2009/05/19/needs-editing-government-printing-waste.aspx
• http://www.computerworlduk.com/toolbox/green-computing/waste-recycling/news/index.cfm?newsid=5512
• http://www.governmentprintingreport.com/